THE NEWS FROM SOUTH AFRICA

January to June 2005
The Dependable Strengths Foundation
Jennifer Tallack, Executive Director

The Center for Dependable Strengths is delighted to welcome Jennifer Tallack to Seattle this August as our featured speaker for our first annual Conference for DS Practitioners and Partners. For Conference info, please click here.

From the DSF Central Office in Johannesburg

123 participants completed DSAP Training
88 completed the Job Magnet Process
16 completed the One-Day Educators’ Training
13 completed the Discovery Programme
6 complete Facilitator Training

We know that several of those trained have successfully gained employment. We have not yet done a phone around to confirm numbers. Many obtained referrals during their practice session in the shopping malls.

An insurance company has taken us into partnership to work with them in their Social Responsibility Programme. They plan to develop community projects and DS will be part of this.

From the Operating Groups

An Operating group is a team of facilitators authorized by the DSF Central Office to provide DS training independently of the DSF Central Office. The Operating Groups generally secure their own funding.

In Germiston (a city in the SE of the greater Johannesburg area), an Operating Group offers weekly DSAP training at the Ellerine Community Centre.

In Alexandra (a township just NE of Joburg), a team is forming. It is not yet a sustainable Operating Group. Training and materials are needed.

In Centurion (25 mi NE of Joburg, near Pretoria), a strong team is in place. They are already organizing their first training for unemployed in the area. They have the skills and resources to become a sustainable Operating Group sometime in the near future.

In Ledig (90 mi NW of Joburg, near Sun City), a team is forming. It is not yet a sustainable operating group. Training and materials are needed.

The town of Ledig with a population of approximately 15,000 is the centre of the Bakubung People. Ledig is one of the poorest wards in South Africa’s North West Province. 67% of the population earn less than R6,000 ($900) per annum. Nearly 57% have no annual individual income at all.

More from Germiston

The Germiston Community Operating Group is sustained through the Ellerine Community Centre and, as you can see from the figures, has been very successful. The Centre is primarily for women and offers training in literacy, computer skills, sewing, and cooking. Learners pay a nominal fee of R50 ($7.50) a course. Childcare is provided.

131 participants learned the DSA process. It is often difficult to monitor students since we are completely reliant upon them keeping in contact with the centre to report their progress. The known facts are as follows:

16 are employed as a direct result of the workshops.

17 are now successful entrepreneurs as a direct result of the workshops.

20 are continuing their education in other programmes at the centre.

8 are Christian missionaries from America who are interested in taking DSAP to the communities they serve here in South Africa.

17 are receiving advanced training in order to develop their own community centre in Orange Farm (an informal settlement west of Johannesburg). They have already completed Level One Training. The plan is to bring them to the centre for additional training and to send them back to Orange Farm equipped with sewing machines, knitting machines, and a computer.

13 are community workers at the Marathon and Makausi squatter camp communities (near Germiston). A meeting has been organized with the Community Committee with the intention of taking more workshops to the camps. The camps have limited financial resources and are unable to afford the transport. Several people have been identified as potential facilitators to operate within the squatter camps and community development projects.

Squatter camps are officially called “informal settlements.” They are densely populated settlements where people have constructed temporary shelters from scraps of corrugated iron, building rubble, and such. Some informal settlements exist for many years until the government is able to step in to provide other housing options.

16 are residents of the Sparrow Ministries AIDS Hospice and will promote DS workshops at the hospice.

For information on South Africa, please click here.